Alpesh Nakar's Blog

Getting spammed is probably a sign of some visibility in the interland. For starters it may be ámusing’, but then it does start to get on your nerves. As if email spam wasn’t enough.

Since September 2006 – 4 months after I started blogging and with some content indexed by Google, I had lot of spams popping up and being taken care of by Akismet. I was sick of managing this from the dashboard in WordPress. So how did I bring this spam, pretty much under control, you might want to read as under.

1. Get yourself an awesome Green Beast Çontact Form Plugin from Mike Cherim. In the past I have used another contact form plugin, which was definitely not secure, since I got inbox spammed like hell! So do yourself a favor, get Mike Cherim’s Green Beast Contact Form. I won’t name the other plugin, it is not good to do that. If you really want to know, email me via the contact form

2. Spam Karma 2 Plugin - I have been using this plugin for quite sometime now. Actually since 6 weeks and I have applied ‘Total Beeatch’ in General Settings. So far it has netted 3844 spam. Since Sk2 went ‘live’I have not seen anything in Akismet. To assess Sk2, I turned it for a week and your guess is good as mine. So it is back on. You can configure as per your requirements.

3. Bad Behaviour Plugin – Is the latest addition, after some spam seemed to ‘slip’ through SK2. Bad Behaviour is awesome and it has been online since last 10 days now. I have not ‘moderated’or ‘deleted’ any spam. This plugin takes care of it all. You do not need to configure anything.

4. Akismet Plugin – Is the default plugin with standard wordpress installs. It does its job, but having to moderate, delete spam is something that you would not want to do. I have not experienced the latest release of Akismet Plugin, which is only a week old. I will turn off all plugins at some stage and will repost my thoughts.

In all, I use these 4 plugins to beat spam. I started with Akismet, then added Sk2, then Green Beast Contact Form and lastly Bad Behaviour Plugin. Today, I am happy as a puppy

Get them.

1. Bad Behaviour Plugin
2. Akismet Plugin
3. Green Beast Contact Form
4. Spam Karma 2

These are tried and tested methods to slam the door on spam for your blogs. The biggest and strongest weapon in your arsenal is the Green Beast Contact Form Plugin. The other three are truly your best defense, vouched for by Quick Online Tips as well. On a side note about - Akismet has created a useful link on above the moderation screen called – “Recheck Queue for Spam“. Just click it and Akismet will recheck the entire queue awaiting moderation and clean out all spam via Quick Online Tips

Do you encounter a lot of spam? I know Community Server gets thrashed! What measures you have taken?

I have upgraded my WordPress to version 2.1. My blog did bugger up! It showed each post twice! I checked in the dashboard. Everything looked all right here. Whew!

Next, I started disabling each plugins to see which one of them, buggered the blog. Well it turned out to be KG Archives/ Sideblog Plugin . The author has kindly posted an update. I have not enabled the plugins yet. KG Archives works well. However Sideblog breaks my blog. I just don’t get anywhere nearer to the home page with this plugin.

After having upgraded my blog, I read some interesting blogs here, here and here. They gave me the creeps   I should have followed the steps outlined and obviously, I had not. This was my secong wordpress upgrade and actually first major upgrade. Hmm, this is what I should have done (thanks to Lorelle – what follows hereunder is an excerpt from her post)

1. Update WordPress Plugins: Before you install WordPress 2.1, check the WordPress Plugin compatibility list to make sure your favorite can’t-live-without WordPress Plugins will work with the new version. Even if they aren’t on the list, check the WordPress Plugin author’s site to see if they have updated their Plugin.

2. Don’t Upgrade Properly? Don’t Complain: Most upgrade issues in the WordPress Support Forums come from those who don’t follow the upgrade instructions properly.

If you are making the leap from an older version, please follow the instructions on upgrading from WordPress 1.5.x and 2.0.x to 2.1. Changes were made in each of these versions to the database, so your upgrade may need to be incremental, or at least a little more fussy.

3. Before installing the new version of WordPress:

1. Backup everything, including your WordPress Theme files.
2. Turn off all WordPress Plugins.
3. Delete the old WordPress core files.
4. Upload the new WordPress core files.

If you don’t do this, we’ll tell you to do this when you come visit us in the WordPress Support Forums. The process of uploading files over the top of others can cause glitches if there are any interruptions in your Internet connection. Don’t trust it. Delete and upload new files.

If you are having massive errors and problems after running the upgrade.php script, then start over by deleting the files and uploading them again. This solves most problems with upgrades and patches. Hopefully, this process will be automated and easier in the future.

4. Turn Off WordPress Plugins Before Upgrading: WordPress 2.1 changes the tables structure in the database a bit and adds new ones. WordPress Plugins that access the changed tables in the database may implode after the upgrade, so make sure these are updated before you begin the upgrade process.

Make sure all WordPress Plugins are inactive, then turn them on one by one and test the site thoroughly after each one is turned on so you can find the culprit before you get too far.

Download Squad’s Post Install Checklist is worth reviewing to make sure everything is still working as it should.

5. Specific Troubleshooting Issues

If You Have Trouble: If you are having trouble with the WordPress 2.1 upgrade, spend a few minutes searching through the WordPress Support Forums. The odds are you aren’t alone and someone has already responded with an answer. If not, then ask. Your problem may be the some as someone else who doesn’t have the courage to ask.

Rich Text Editor No Shows: For those who use the Rich Text Editor feature for writing posts, you need to make sure you enable Javascript in Firefox in order to see the WYSIWYG editing section of the Write Post panel. Make sure nothing else you have installed prevents Javascript from running or you will not see the Rich Text Editor appear correctly.

If your host server has not upgraded past MySQL 4.0, do not install WordPress 2.1. According to Ryan Boren, while the WordPress 2x branch will continue to support MySQL 3.23.23, WordPress 2.1 will require MySQL 4.0, taking advantage of the more powerful and optional functions in the newer versions of the database program. It’s time to nag them or find a new server if you want to keep up with WordPress. You should also know that MySQLAB has stopped support for MySQL 4.0. Ryan says that WordPress 2.2 will require a minimum of MySQL 4.1.

WordPress Theme Authors be warned. Some are reporting screwed up WordPress Themes and structure after upgrading. WordPress 2.1 now incorporates blogroll links into the category list and a few new WordPress Theme template files, deprecated a few older ones. If your WordPress Theme uses the wp-list_cats() template tag, it has been deprecated in WordPress 2.1. The new template tag is wp_list_categories(). Ericulous summed up some of the other changes in template tags between WordPress 2.0x and WordPress 2.1.

Old Atom Feeds: Some have complained about the lack of an upgrade for Atom. Matt Mullenweg announced that next update will feature the Atom API for the next version. Until then, you can add Atom 1.0 feed to your WordPress blog with WordPress Atom 1.0 WordPress Plugin, enable it manually with the instructions from snellspace.com, or replace your feeds with Feedburner.

Period.

I freaked out when I saw point # 4! I did not do that. As I mentioned previously, I have done such major upgrade – first time. Atleast I knew that if something breaks my blog, it will be because of  plugins. Nothing else. Also, I see that my links are now part of categories. I will shortly investigate if  this is true for me as well

 ”Some are reporting screwed up WordPress Themes and structure after upgrading. WordPress 2.1 now incorporates blogroll links into the category list and a few new WordPress Theme template files, deprecated a few older ones. If your WordPress Theme uses the wp-list_cats() template tag, it has been deprecated in WordPress 2.1. The new template tag is wp_list_categories(). Ericulous summed up some of the other changes in template tags between WordPress 2.0x and WordPress 2.1.”

Will keep you posted on that. But in keep mind the above points when you are going to upgrade to WordPress 2.1!

Update: My ‘Fresh’ Theme does not work well. Categories show up my links. Why? As mentioned above about wp_list_categories. So for now I have switched to a theme that works fine. I have tried the following themes and they also don’t work:

Durable v0.2.2

fadtastic_theme 1.0

Fresh 1.1

Themes that worked for me

Diavola 1.0

Mollio 1.0 by Kaushal Sheth

binge …. Early this week, I came across this enthusiastic wordpress theme designer’s blog. He has this self imposed challenge of creating 31 wordpress themes in this month  (January – incase you didn’t realise we are in the year 2007 ). You should check him out. He started on 15th Jan and is going strong. Drop in and say G’day to him and few words of encouragement will certainly keep his spirits high.

On a different note, “Lorelle on WordPress” is dedicating February to WordPress Plugins and WordPress Plugin authors. She will be writing 30 posts about different WordPress Plugins and the art of the WordPress Plugin. 30 for the price of 28 Hey?!

Both of the ‘series’ is going to be worth every ‘çent‘ éyeball. Look out for them.

Here’s ‘wishing’ the designer my best wishes. 

Have you come across something like this in relation to wordpress? Any other blog engine? WordPress is indeed the most powerful and most popular blog engine today. Would you agree with that?

My host – MidPhase (aff)- has just made WordPress 2.06 available for upgrade. I have upgraded it and it seems like my feeds are broken! BOO!!! Need WordPress 2.07. Nope …. make that WordPress 2.1 aka “Ella”

Yes, WordPress 2.1 has just been released and I guess, it will be couple of days before my host can make that availalble.

In the meantime, what am I supposed to do with this buggy version? Any suggestions? I am off to search on live.com

 

Update: Didn’t have to go any further then FeedBurner Support. Found this post and the lead from there on. I think this has fixed the issues. If you are having issues with feeds from my blog, please let me know.

I am happy this workaround for WordPress has got the feeds burning well and truly.

Honestly, I would never rush with upgrades, but I must admit – I have slept only 2.5 hours in last 24 hours. I have a big exam coming up this Thursday

Issues in 2.06, namely – PHP security problem and the Feedburner issue – have been fixed.

Because this is a much smaller update than previous versions, you do not have to update all of WordPress’ files if you’re upgrading from version 2.0.6. Here is the list of files that have changed since 2.0.6:

• wp-admin/inline-uploading.php
• wp-admin/post.php
• wp-includes/classes.php
• wp-includes/functions.php
• wp-settings.php
• wp-includes/version.php

Source

Dear Readers,

After upgrading to WordPress 2.05 and change of theme, I made some changes to my rss settings and all hell broke loose! Please accept my apologies for the numerous feeds/emails recieved as a result of this.

I have fixed the issues and all should be well now.

Thank you.

Alpesh Nakar

Finally Performancing have opened their AD Network.

Excerpts from email received last night

Hi everyone,

I’m really pleased to finally tell you that Performancing Partners is now open for bloggers!

Add your blog, and get ranked in the marketplace alongside similar blogs. It’s dead simple, and will hopefully help match advertisers to your blogs.

We’re not making an official announcement just yet, though you’re free to talk about anything you read on the site. I’ll make an official announcement shortly…

I checked my email only after I read about this in Yugatech!

Go and Sign Up if you blog because

The revenue split is very simple with Performancing Partners, and it’s geared toward rewarding publishers that stick with then, and refer others into the program. The main points are these:

* You take 70% of advertising revenue your blog generates.
* Performancing takes 30%
* You take 5% of income generated by any publisher or advertiser you refer to them

Sign Up!

Get 2GB of  free remote backup for your photos, documents, the works!! Get MOZY